


Safety Is a Thief's Luxury

by whatfandom



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Angst, FAHC, GTA AU, M/M, backstory fic, trans girl jack
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-06
Updated: 2016-11-06
Packaged: 2018-07-29 19:12:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7696012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whatfandom/pseuds/whatfandom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gavin's family doesn't have enough money for Christmas presents. Gavin, at the age of 17, starts stealing to give his family a better life. This is the story of why Gavin Free is in the world of criminals and how he ended up with The Fake AH Crew.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The name's of Gavin's family comes from the book The Picture of Dorian Grey (read it if you haven't already!)  
> I've been working on this for about eight months, or since Christmas. This was originally intended to be a short angsty one shot, but it accidentally turned into a 10,000 word mess. So, this is a very slow burn fic, actual shipping won't come into the story until after the fourth chapter.  
> And huge shout out to the best editor a writer could ask for [Spidey](http://spidizzle.tumblr.com/) <3

Gavin turns into his street at last. He's been walking for the past twenty minutes to get home from school and it's starting to get cloudy, looking like it's going to start raining. It's cold, not cold enough to start snowing, but cold rain is not something he needs right now. He's got A Levels in a few weeks and his mum really can't afford to take off work to take him to the hospital if he gets pneumonia. 

He keeps his head low and eyes on the ground to make sure he doesn't trip on any holes in the sidewalk. Gavin steps over a random beer bottle on the sidewalk. There's nothing extraordinary about his street, no Christmas lights or exceptionally beautiful houses. The lawns are usually cut and the paint on the one story houses all look fine, but they all mostly look the same and no one really puts in the extra effort. So he keeps his eyes locked on the ground. 

He unlocks his front door just as the first drop of rain hits him on the arm. 

"Basil!" He calls for his brother, "did you pick up Tori?" 

"Yeah," Basil sticks his head out from the kitchen. "She's upstairs doing her homework."

"Did mum call and say when she'd be home from work?" 

"No, so wanna help me cook dinner?" 

"Yeah, sure." Gavin sighs, plopping his heavy backpack on the floor by the front door. 

  
  


Gavin looks at the clock on the table in the corner of the living room.  It reads 2:47 AM in bright red, digital letters. He sighs and tries to remember what his professor taught about the ancient Greeks this morning. If he hadn't of fallen asleep in class maybe he would remember, but he did and now he doesn't know. He closes his book, giving up for tonight, and heads to the room he shares with his siblings. 

He hears a car drive up and sees headlights illuminate the living room. He takes a few steps down the hallway, so he's hidden among the shadows. 

His mum comes in through the front door. Immediately all her bags are on the ground she closes the door quietly behind her. Gavin hears her sigh, let out a shaky breath, and start to quietly sob. 

"Christmas is next week and we don't even have a tree," she whispers to herself. Gavin feels something awful sink in his gut. He's never seen his mum cry before and has a feeling he shouldn't be standing here. He counts to five before coming out of the shadows.

"Mum?" He asks timidly. His mum turns around to face him. Once she actually sees him she quickly wipes her eyes and sniffles. 

"Gavin," she scolds. "What are you still doing up? It's nearly 3 in the morning." Gavin shrugs. "Go back to bed." 

He stands there for a moment just looking at his mum. "Are you okay?" He asks instead of following her instructions. She lets out a small sigh. 

"Yes, I'm okay. Just tired. Come on, now, go back to bed." He nods this time and does what he's told. 

 

Gavin wakes up in the middle of the night and checks his watch. Even with the glow in the dark hands it takes him a minute to read that it's 4:16 in the morning. His stomach rumbles and curl in on itself.  _ I don't  _ wanna _ get out of bed to eat _ , Gavin thinks. 

Gavin gets up to eat. As he walks down the hallways to the kitchen he realizes that the kitchen light is on and walks even quieter to the kitchen, just barely poking his head around the corner. His mum is sitting there, from the angle he's at he can't see her face, but he can see her shaking shoulders and hear her quiet sobs. He leans over just a little more to see what's on the table she's leaning over. "OVERDUE" the letter reads in big, red letters. He deflates completely. His mum shouldn't have to work herself into the ground just to not even support them. He has to find some way to help, especially with Christmas right around the corner. 

Gavin steps into the light. “Mum?” He speaks tentatively. She turns around in the bar stool quickly. 

“Gav, sweetheart.” She quickly wipes her eyes. “What’re you doin’ up, baby? It’s 4 in the morning. Did you have a bad dream?” 

“Something like that,” He replies. His mum’s eyes soften even more. 

“Baby, I’m sorry. Come’ere?” She opens her arms, inviting him in for a hug. Gavin steps forward and hugs her tight. Gavin hopes she can’t tell the hug is for her benefit, not his. 

“I love you, mum. You try so hard for us. Thank you, mum.” Usually Gavin would be much taller than her, but because his mum is sitting on the stool, Gavin’s head rests on her shoulder comfortably. She sighs quietly.

“Gavin, baby. That’s my job. I’m your mum. I wish I could provide more, but it’s my job.”  

  
  


After the 4 am talk Gavin had with his mum, Gavin decides to look for a job. His mum probably wouldn’t approve, but he knows they need it.

“How to find a job,” Gavin types into Google. The first result is a wikihow article, Gavin figures that’s as good as anything and clicks the link. 

“ **Step One: Make sure getting a job is really something you can really handle** .” Gavin skips that step. 

“ **Step Two: Create a resume.** ” This was what Gavin needed. “ Even if there’s little to nothing on the resume, it’s important to have.” 

Gavin continues reading, doing each step meticulously. 

 

Gavin lands an interview, and another, and another… and another. But the second they ask, “May I see your resume?” There’s no paid jobs. He has a couple awards he got at school, some volunteer work that lasted a few hours, but nothing long term. They each have the same “I’m sorry, dear” look when they hand the paper back to him and say, “We’ll get back to you.”

  
  


Gavin fidgets, walking up and down the aisles of the toy section. He watches as men in nice slacks and silk ties and women in designer dresses grab big boxes, saying to each other, "do you think Emma will like this?" and "you know if Tommy doesn't get this he'll throw a fit." 

He counts the money in his hands, two one pound notes and 11 p. Birthday money and change he’s found on the floor. 

He walks out of the store. He kicks a rock, sighs, slumps up against a wall, and stares at the ground some more. 

A woman walks by. He tries not the be jealous of her designer clothes and leather bag. She scoffs at him. His shoes may be dirty and his jeans have holes in them, but he looks fine, honestly. 

He rolls his eyes and looks back down at the ground. Her wallet. He stares at it for a second. He picks it up and instantly goes to say "hey lady your wallet!" but he doesn't see her. He bites his lip and looks around; no one's looking at him. He opens it quickly, takes all the cash she has on her, drops the wallet, and quickly walks away from it. 

He walks down the street. Then he walks to the park. He climbs a tree and takes out the cash he shoved in his pocket. He counts it and nearly falls out the tree shocked at the amount of money in his hands. Two 50 pound notes and a 20 pound note. 120 pounds.  _ One hundred and twenty pounds.  _

He remembers what his mum said last night.  _ A week until Christmas and we don't even have a tree.  _

So he walks to the nearest tree lot, hands the guy the 20 pound note, and goes home. 

"Gavin!" His mum shouts when he gets home. He flinches not thinking she would be home so soon. 

He smiles innocently. "Hi, mum." 

"Gavin David Richmond, why are you dragging a Christmas tree in my front door?" He can’t tell if she sounds mad or confused. Both probably. 

"The guy had one tree in this size left. He was nice and said I could have it because I mentioned we didn't have one. Christmas spirit and all that, right?" He lies, but well. She stares at him, picking apart his words.

"Are you sure about that?" 

"Yes, ma'am. He was very nice." He shoves his guilt down his throat. Victoria comes running down the hall, 

"Mum!" She shouts. "We have a tree?!" 

"Gavin got it," his mum tells Victoria. Victoria runs to him and Gavin leans the tree against a wall so he can catch her in a hug. 

"Cool!" She sounds so excited. His mum doesn't question him anymore. 

 

The tree is up and has all the decorations Tori can fit on the tree. Gavin has never seen her that excited, even Mum relaxes and Basil helps too. 

Gavin keeps thinking about the money. It wasn't his money to take but that lady was so rich. She had bags upon bags of things. He’s sure she wouldn't miss it. Besides, she dropped her wallet. That wasn't his fault. 

Never again, though. He was never going to steal again. 

 

The tree slowly gains gifts under it. One for each of them from Mum. Which was good and he was so thankful for her. Nothing was under the tree for Mum. He has a hundred pounds. That's enough. That's more than enough. 

"I'm going out, Mum!" He shouts, running out the door with the two 50 pound notes burning in his jean pocket. 

 

It's Christmas Eve and everyone goes to bed early. Mum complains about being tired, Tori was put to bed hours ago, and Basil always wants to sleep. He wraps everything he got for them, having hidden all of it in his foot locker.  

Tori got the sweater she's been talking about for ages, he got Basil a computer game he knew he'd love, and mum got a ticket for a free massage. He has 30 pounds left, he saves it for something else. Gavin puts it all under the tree and goes to sleep all the gifts signed "Santa" in the neatest handwriting he could manage. 

 

Gavin almost gets in trouble on Christmas morning. His mum pulls him aside, not wanting to ruin Basil and Tori's time. 

“So, Gavin.” She holds up the coupon. “Sweetheart, where did you get the money for this stuff?”

Gavin shuffles his feet. 

“I thought you’d like it, Mum.”   
“Gav, sweetheart. It’s not that. Just- the tree… All this stuff? Where’d you get the money?” She looks right in his eyes, not allowing him to avoid eye contact. “I mean. Did you get a job?”

 _A job._ “Yeah… I didn’t… I didn’t want you to know…” He shrugs, keeping his eyes on the floor. His mum lets out a small sigh and suddenly he’s being hugged.   
“Sweetheart, you didn’t have to do that.” 

“It was just… It was just once. It was under the table, I guess you could say,” he mumbles into her shoulder. 

 

Gavin walks home from his first exam. He wouldn't have failed if he had time to study. Gavin officially drops right after his first exam. His mum doesn't have to know. 

The January air feels sharp in his lungs. He pulls his hoodie closer to him. He should probably have a winter coat. He doesn’t, but he probably should. Victoria and Basil both have a proper one, that’s really the only thing that matters. Gavin ducks his head, avoiding light snowfall in his eyes. 

Gavin stands in a queue for a movie, behind a man a foot taller than him talking animatedly with another man beside him, neither paying attention to much besides each other. 

Gavin takes a small breath, and with small sticky fingers, slips the man’s wallet out of his back pocket. He walks away as calm as ever, ducks in an alleyway, takes the cash out, tosses the wallet in the trash, walks a block, and takes the wallet of a woman who left it on a table for a moment. 

He doesn’t think, refuses to think. Every time he takes something he gets better and better. He gets sneakier and blends in more with the faceless crowd.

And every time he takes something his family gets better fed or better dressed. Last week Victoria got a new pair of shoes, the week before that Basil got a winter coat. Last month they had enough to have ham in their sandwiches for lunch instead of just peanut butter. 

“Gavin…” His mum says every time he gives her the money. “You really don’t need to keep this job. We’re fine, you need to focus on school.” But she takes it, saying next time she won’t. She says the same thing the next time. 

  
  


He slips up. He makes a mistake. He robs a man at night. He robs a man that carries a knife. He gets careless, cocky, thinking he’s been doing this for two months and he’s really good at being sneaky. 

“You little brat,” the man spits. He must have felt Gavin slip his hand into his back pocket. The man immediately pulls out the knife, the cold metal glistening underneath the streetlight. Gavin’s eyes widen. The man lunges forward, aiming the knife for Gavin’s stomach. Gavin dodges it and knocks the knife out of his hand. The man takes a dive for the knife. Gavin gets to it first, but the other man is bigger and lands on Gavin, wrestling with him for the knife. 

Gavin gets a grip on the knife and pushes it into the man’s chest. He feels it all. He feels how the knife rattles when pushed through bone. He feels the warm, wet, sticky blood drip down his hands. He feels the heaviness of the man’s body on him. He sees everything. He sees the initial shock on the man’s face. He sees the life leave his body. Gavin is shaking. He pushes the body off of him and runs. 

He doesn’t stop running. The knife, still wet from blood, clutched tight in his hand. He runs into the house. He takes a quick look around him. His mum isn’t home yet. Basil isn’t around, probably asleep. Victoria is asleep. It’s 10pm.  

Gavin makes his way into the bathroom and takes a shower in his clothes, trying to clean up the blood. Eventually he sets the knife down on the shower edge. Eventually he takes off his clothes and showers for real. Eventually it hits him what he just did. When that happens he sinks to his knees. 

The water is pouring over him and he can’t breathe. He just took someone’s life. He suddenly can’t breathe at all. The water is suffocating him. He just can’t breathe. All he can see is red blood and darkness in the man’s eyes. All he can hear is grunting from the man when they fought and his heavy steps as he ran. He can’t focus on breathing. All he can focus on is  _ how could I do that  _ and  _ what will happen if someone finds out?  _

He catches his breath before his mum comes home. He didn’t get blood on anything but the two door knobs he touched. He cleans them with a kitchen wipe, puts his wet clothes in the washing machine, tucks the knife in a locked box in his footlocker, and passes out. 

 

After everything that happened, he told himself he was going to stop. Gavin was going to stop. He can’t deal with it. He took someone’s life. He was going to find a real job, no matter how many times he gets rejected. He was. 

Mum falls. She falls and breaks her leg. There’s been ice on the ground. There’s been ice on the ground, so there’s been ice on the step that you have to walk up to get to their front door. Mum slips and breaks her leg. 

“We’ll be okay, you know that. I just have to stay off my leg for a little while, kiddos.” 

Except he knows how it works. She’ll need to go on Statutory Sick Pay and there’s always a delay to that. He also knows they’re living paycheck to paycheck and mum always worked extra shifts, that’s not going to be included in SSP. 

 

Gavin carried the knife with him since he got it. He’s starting to realize that being a pickpocket is dangerous. That can’t stop him, not since he really can’t afford to stop. Mum has actually started to depend on the money he gives her. They’ve been doing better, not a lot, but better. Gavin’s gotten a lot better at having sticky fingers. 

 

Gavin sets rules for himself. Number one: don’t steal from people who don’t look like they have a lot of money. Number two: don’t steal from kids. Number three: steal only what he needs. Number four: no one needs to get hurt. 

He turns a corner in a dark ally, to toss the wallet and count the money he has. He ends up right next to a girl with short black hair with purple highlights, perfect gold eyeliner, perfectly contrasting her dark brown skin and dark eyes, black jeans, and a faded leather jacket. She’s smoking a cigarette and looks his age. His eyes instantly widen and he goes to run. She speaks before he can move. 

“You need the money? I’ve seen you around. You’re good.” He blinks. “Don’t speak much, huh?” She speaks an American accent. “Do you need the money or what?”

“I- yeah. I do. I mean. Are you with the cops?” She laughs, her laugh is bitter and cold. 

“No. Definitely not. In fact. I’ve got a job for you. 500 pounds if you complete it.” 

His mouth drops open. That’s a lot of money. More than enough to cover his mum for a month. 

“What-” He instantly goes to say yes, “Wait. What is this job exactly?” 

“Someone owes my crew some money. You know the pizza place on Berkeley street?” She cocks an eyebrow. He nods. “Rob it.” She says it like it’s easy. 

“How do I know I can trust you?” He looks her up and down, suspicious. She laughs bitterly. 

“You don't. How do I know I can trust you?”

“You don't,” he replies, simple as could be. 

“The name’s Fae. What’s yours?”

Gavin’s mind goes blank for a minute. “Uh. Rich. My name’s Rich.” 

Fae laughs, “Alright, Rich. You in?”

 

Gavin buys a gun off a sketchy looking guy in a back ally with money he hadn’t given to his mum yet, in fear he’d give her too much at one time and she’d get suspicious. Gavin robs a store, wearing a black mask over his head and a gun pointed at the cashier, eyes darting around the small restaurant, he really didn’t want to have to shoot anyone. “Tell your boss this is a message from the Red Crew.” He alters his voice, making his voice sound more scottish than British. He leaves. He runs. He runs 4 blocks before ripping the mask off his head in a back ally. Then he runs 2 more blocks before texting Fae. 

“Done it. Where do you want to exchange?” 

  
  


He walks away from that exchange with 500 pounds in his pocket, a gun under his shirt tucked into his jeans, and his knife tucked into his boot. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> His eyes are bloodshot and his hands are dripping with blood. He looks down at his three thousand pound kill. He’s breathing heavy and arm has a few cuts in it. This is the day Gavin decides he doesn’t like to do the coldblooded killings himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry it's been like two months. i have no excuse.

Fae texts him at 2am. 

“bradford st 15min” 

Gavin throws on dark clothes and tucks his knife and gun to his belt and sneaks out the window at 2 in the morning, with Mum, Victoria, and Basil all tucked in nice in their beds. Gavin sneaks out to make sure they keep their beds and the roof over their heads. 

  
  


“We need you to kill someone.” Is the first thing Fae says to him. Gavin stops mid breath. “This guy has been giving us some trouble, but not enough that it’s urgent. But enough so that if we don’t take care of it, he’ll get cocky. Doesn’t matter how you do it, but it needs to get done as soon as possible.” Fae speaks so casually, like taking another human being’s life is no big deal. It might be faked casualness, like how Gavin speaks, but he doubts it. She’s probably just used to it. Gavin needs to be more like her, calm, cold, unworried.  

“Why would I kill him?” He asks, an air of arrogance in his voice. 

“How does a thousand pounds sound?” She raises an eyebrow and cocks her hip to the side. 

“You want me to kill someone for a thousand pounds?” His voice is cold and tired, mimicking the voices he’s heard at the Red Crew base. 

“How about 1,500? Half up front the rest when you complete the job.” Gavin’s mind races with her offer. 1,500 pounds could feed his family for almost 4 months. “Only rule is you can't ask questions.” Would he really kill someone for 1,500? His mind races with thoughts of Tori and Basil and mum.

“Who is it?” He nods his head. He’ll do it. 

“A no one. He goes by Conrad, he’s really not important. More just annoying.” Fae cocks an eyebrow at him. “You in?” 

Gavin tries to remember what she’s said when she brought him as backup in a few smaller jobs. “Hook me up with a weapons dealer too and you’ve got yourself a deal.”

  
  


Gavin has extra money that he can’t give to Mum because it would have be too much of large sum of money at once and she’d get suspicious. He has long since learned to keep a lock on his foot locker at the end of his bed. 

Once his mum asked why he had a lock on it. Gavin turned red and said, “because it’s private, mum.” But he says it in a whiney teenager voice. He nearly grimaced at his lie. He wants to act cold in front of Red Crew, not lie to his mum. His mum looked at him kind of sad and said, “I know it’s not easy sharing a room with your siblings. I’ll let you have your privacy, sweetheart.” She kissed his forehead and told him she loved him. Gavin immediately felt bad about lying. 

 

“I need a short, lightweight rifle.” Gavin says to the dealer. The man snorts at him after giving him a one over. 

“Come back when  _ you’re _ not such a lightweight.” 

“The Red Crew sent me.” Gavin says with confidence, despite being surrounded by men that would snap his neck with no problem and not being at all confident. 

The man looks at him again, up and down to assess him. “Red Crew, ay? Why didn’t you start with that. We’re good friends with them. So we’re good friends with you.” 

Gavin walks out with 2 grand less, a Winchester Model 70 taken apart in 3 pieces in his bookbag, and 10 rounds. Gavin practices at the Red Crews base everyday, he ends up talking to a few people that can help him out. Gavin, as it turns out, isn’t half bad with a sniper rifle. 

 

He meets a few people that he definitely wouldn’t consider friends. A woman named Candice and him talk a bit, she’s been with the Red Crew for almost two years, she says. “They’re good people. They know who to trust.” Gavin doesn’t trust what she says, but she’s nice to talk to, she gives him some pointers on how to shoot. He teachers her some of what he knows about computers when she says she’s having a bit of trouble tracking one of her target. 

She teaches him how to properly zero his rifle (“make sure your rifle is zeroed, or aligned, especially with long distance shooting. You need to exact as possible”). She teaches him on several of her own guns to show him a variety. He teaches her how to easily hack into low security cameras (he had way too much time in computer class honestly). She teaches him how to control his breathing when shooting, he teaches her how to hack into websites to get your information off their damn mailing lists. She teaches him anticipation, (“look kid, I’m not a sniper, but my a few of my friends are and they always say to anticipate where your target is going to be two seconds from now. That’s how you miss. And in our line of work. You can’t afford to miss.”), and he teaches her remotely wipe someone’s computer. He didn’t teach her a single thing that couldn’t be found out online easily. 

  
  


Two weeks of training and he feels he’s ready. He’s lying belly down on a 3 story rooftop. Conrad takes out a cigarette, leans against a wall, and languidly takes a drag. Gavin watches him carefully through his scope. Gavin pauses for a minute.  _ Are you really ready to take this man’s life?  _ pop’s into his head. He shoves it out of his thoughts immediately.  _ Focus. _ He lines his rifle up for the shot to be square in the middle of his forehead. He takes a breath, holds it. He takes the shot. He doesn’t miss. 

The now lifeless body crumbles to the ground, blood pooling around his head Gavin Richmond has just taken the life of a man who he did not know. He doesn’t think about it. He won’t. 

Instead, Gavin takes apart his rifle, puts the three pieces in his bookbag, and casually walks down the stairs and through the back alleyway. He walks 4 block before he pulls out his phone. 

“Done.” 

He walks another 3 blocks before he gets a reply. 

“Base” 

Base is the other way he’d been walking so he walks two blocks to avoid walking right by the crime scene and walks to where the text said to. 

 

He stumbles home at 2:40am, a hickey on his neck, and stumbling over his own two feet. He opens the door and his mum is on him instantly. “Gavin David Richmond. How  _ dare _ you? Do you know how close I was to calling the police?!” And possibly getting the three of them taken away from her, neither of them said. She looks hard at him. “Gavin. Are you- are you  _ drunk?”  _ Gavin looks at his feet. “And what is that!” She tilts his head to the side so she can get a better look at the bruise on his neck. “I really don’t know what’s gotten into you lately. You’ve hardly been spending time at home.” She sighs and lets go of him. “Gav, sweetheart. Talk to me?” 

Gavin shrugs and shifts on his feet, almost falling over doing that. “I dunno.” 

“We can talk about this tomorrow.” She takes another look at him. “Do you need help to your room?” 

“I got it, Mum. You don’t have to worry.” Gavin stumbles to his shared room. As quietly as he can, although he’s nearly certain neither of his siblings are asleep, he puts his bookbag (filled with his taken apart rifle, pistol, knife, the money from his first real kill today, his brand new fake ID with the name he uses at the base and a fake age, and 11 condoms in a roll) into his foot locker, and locks it. 

He falls into his bed. Gavin stares with as much focus as he can at the wood paneling of the bed above him, Basil’s bed. Gavin then gets dizzy trying to focus on nothing in the dark. He opts for closing his eyes instead. 

He won’t see the blood, the wound. He won’t hear the echo of the gunshot, the faint crumple of the man’s body as he hit the ground. He rubs at his eyes. Gavin’s fine.

 

He wakes up and smells coffee. His immediate thought is to throw up, but he doesn’t. He instead changes out of the uncomfortable day clothes he never changed out of the night before and puts on pajamas instead, which is about a thousand times more comfortable. He wanders out of his room to a quiet kitchen. 

“Where is everyone?” He mumbles, nursing only a slight headache.  

“I sent Basil and Tori out for the afternoon. Figured you might need the sleep. Figured we should talk.” She definitely isn’t suggesting that idea. “Eat first. Might make you feel better.” 

Gavin does what he's told and eats, head down and avoiding eye contact with his mum the whole time. She was right, he does feel a lot better after he eats and drinks two glasses of water. 

His mum sits next to him at the table. “What's been going on, Gav? You haven't been talking to me. I used to think we were so close. You’re the oldest, and I know you feel like you have so much responsibility for this family, which I apologize for. But you’re still my baby boy. You will  _ always  _ be my baby boy.” 

Gavin shrugs. “I dunno. I've just been busy and stressed, I guess.” 

“What have you been doing to be so stressed? I mean. Drinking and coming home past curfew and not even calling? That's not like you. I'm worried about you, Gavin.” She sighs and now she sounds stressed, which is exactly what he was trying to prevent from happening. 

“I dunno. I'm sorry, Mum. I really didn't mean to worry you.” 

“Maybe you should quit your job, Gavin. Ever since you got this job you've started to act out.” He stops moving for a second, scared she’ll ask where he works to make so much money. “I mean. Balancing work and school isn't easy, I know, kiddo.” 

“Yeah…” He doesn't even have to think about lying, which should probably scare him more than anything. “You’re right. It's not easy, but Mum. We need the money, you know we do.” 

“You shouldn't be worrying about these things. You’re 17, 18 in a few months I'll give you that, but you're still young. Is that what last night was about? Trying to keep that little bit of teenage rebellion?” She smiles sadly at him. 

_ Trying to forget.  _ “Yeah. I didn't- I wasn't thinking. You're not mad?” 

“I'm mad you haven't been talking to me, yes.” She sighs. “I'm more mad at myself for letting you think you needed to take this job. I'm not gonna make you quit because you're almost an adult and you have to make your own adult decisions, but think about it, okay?” 

He nods, “Yes, ma’am.” 

“Mum, Gav,” she corrects, gently. “You don't need to be scared of me and call me ma’am. I love you, Gav. I never want you to forget that.” She moves closer and hugs him. He’s surprised for a second because no one has hugged him for quite a while, he hasn’t let anyone get close enough to him. He relaxes and hugs her back tightly, his eyes stinging and heart pounds. 

“I'm so sorry, Mum.” He chokes, hiding his face in her shoulder. 

“Oh, sweetheart. Don't be, just talk to me next time, agreed?” She runs her fingers through his hair to comb it out and calm him down. He nods, even though he knows he won’t. 

“Please never forget I love you. You and Basil and Victoria. I love you all so much,” he mumbles. He blinks and a tear slides down his cheek. 

“Oh, baby. Of course I couldn't. None of us could. Basil and Tori aren't as oblivious as you think they are. They’re young, but not that young. They both know you love them. But I suppose a reminder every now and then isn’t too bad,” she laughs softly. “They know how much you give up to help keep this family afloat. I'm so sorry you have to do that. But they know. They know how much you love them.” 

Gavin nods. They know how much he loves them. 

“And we love you too. Basil, Tori, and me. We all love you so much. Don't you forget that either. Got it?”

  
  


_ “We need you to talk some sense into this guy.” _

_ “Deal,” Gavin replies instantly. “For the right price.” Fae smirks at him.  _

_ “You're a quick learner, Rich. Five hundred.” _

_ “And what exactly am I doing to him?” _

_ “Just talk to him. Tell him he needs to pay us back. Or else.” _

 

_ “base” reads a text at midnight on a Thursday night. He's lucky he dropped out.  _

 

_ “You have to be more careful about who you pickpocket on your off time. You're not technically a part of this crew. But if you don't get more careful we’re going to have to give you a little talk.” _

_ “What's it matter to you who I pickpocket?” _

_ “When it's one of our allies and they think it was message sent from us. Then we have a problem.” _

_ “Yes, ma’am.” He nods his head and makes a note to keep that in mind. _

 

“We want to give you back up on this one,” Fae tells him. 

“I've worked on my own until now. Why give me back up?” He crosses his arms across his chest, defiant.

“The target is a bit bigger this time. He's a somebody this time.” There's a beat of silence, filled only with her sighing. “And you're still a newbie and you’re still not technically part of this crew. Just someone we hire out. But you don't know what you're doing. You're just lucky you're on lead. And that's only because  _ I _ trust you.” 

Gavin nods, he assumes it can't be too often that a newbie takes front. “Any specifications?” 

“Hand on hand combat. This needs to send a message.”  _ The knife handle rattles as he forces the blade through the other man. Blood so much blood.  _

His face is perfectly neutral. He nods. “I can do that.” 

“Perfect,” Fae grins wickedly. “He goes by the name of BrownMan. He's a traitor. He betrayed our crew and needs to be taken out.” Her grins turns into a scowl. “Nearly got some of our people killed. He works for the Blue Crew now.”  _ Our people.  _ “Send a message to anyone considering hurting this crew.” 

“Make them know what they get if they do. Got it,” Gavin nods.

“You can stick around the base. Get to know your team, work on finding BrownMan, maybe practice your knife work. Be careful with this one, he’s good. He’s a sniper and he’s quick and secretive. He’s too good. I want him dead.” 

  
  


“Have you found him yet?” Fae walks into a room he’s mostly taken as his office. It’s small and out of the way. He keeps the sniper rifle that he can’t fit in his footlocker. He acquired another one after discovering he wasn’t a bad shot.  

“I’ve found his tracks.” Gavin mumbles, not even looking up from his laptop. “I’m thinking he’s not in England right now. I’m trying to hack into the security cameras from Scotland now. I’ve also found out his first name, Ray.”

“You’re pretty good at this whole computer thing. We could have given you a specialist or someone to help you.” 

“Nah, I wanted to major in computer science if I ever got into Uni. That’s not happening now. But I still have a knack for technology.” 

She leans over his shoulder, “apparently.” She hums and places her chin on his shoulder. Gavin hardly even registers the movement, too focused on hacking-

“Got it!” He shocks himself by his sudden loud voice and twitches, knocking Fae’s chin off him. “Oops. Sorry, love.”  

“Got him?” She asks, face unreadable, not that Gavin even cares to try. 

“Almost. I’ve hacked into Scotland’s traffic cameras. I’ve almost got him.” 

Fae places her hand on his shoulder. “You got this, kid.” And he grins at her. 

 

“Mum?” Gavin asks during one of the few nights they get to all have dinner together. His mum looks over at him, raising her eyebrows slightly in acknowledgement. “For May half term… I was wondering if I could go to maybe Scotland with a few of my friends?” She looks sceptical. “Please, mum?” 

“Gavin, your birthday…” 

“Is just before! I’ll be turning 18. Come on, please? It can be my birthday present. I can take off work and it could just be me and a few friends in Scotland for like 4  _ maybe _ 5 days. Please?” He begs, going full puppy dog eyes and everything. His mum sighs, and he knows that’s a yes. He grins. “Love you, mum!” 

“Mummy, how come Gavvy gets to go away and I can’t?” Victoria whines. 

“Because you’re seven, Tori.” Mum replies instantly. “And Gavin is almost 18. Basil don’t you even bother asking either because you’re only 13.” They all laugh, except Tori (who is now pouting) and Gavin pretends like he didn’t just ask his mum to kill a man for his birthday. 

 

“Come in!” Gavin shouts in response to the knock at his office door, not looking up from his computer. The door to his office is opened and Andrew walks in. 

“When’re we leaving?” Andrew grunts. He’s a nice man, tough and gruff, which are two things Gavin learns that you need to be in this business. Andrew’s kind of short to be a hired gun, though so is Gavin so he can’t really make any judgement. 

“Tomorrow at 7am. We can meet in the living space, main office. We’ll be driving down to Scotland, I’ll set up, and I can track his exact movements from there.” Gavin replies, still not paying much attention to Andrew. He has work he needs to get done before tomorrow. He told his mum he’d be staying over at his friend’s house so they could leave early in the morning. Gavin will be staying at base all night, finishing his work so they  _ can _ leave in the morning. Gavin sees Andrew nod in the corner of his eye. 

“Do you want to have a meeting with the three of us?” Andrew asks, voice gravelly. He’s clearly not used to taking orders from someone who looks approximately 14. 

“Yes. In an hour. I was just about to text you three and say to meet here in an hour. It’ll be a quick one. After that you guys can go home.” Gavin looks up and raises his eyebrows. “You good with that?” 

“Yeah. We’re good.” Andrew nods back at him. There’s another knock at the door. 

“Come in,” Gavin says, keeping his eyes on Andrew. Fae walks in. He should have known it was her; her heavy steel boots can be heard from a mile away, he’d recognize her step anywhere. “Hey, Fae what’s up?”

“Were you having a meeting with your team?” 

“No, not yet. Will in an hour.”

“I’ll see you later, Rich. I’ll tell Tinks and Tonks about the meeting as well.” Andrew steps out of the room, closing the door behind him. 

“How’s your team coming along?” Fae raises her eyebrows. 

“Alright. I trust the three of them enough. They seem like nice guys. They seem to not mind taking orders from me. Seem to accept I’m on lead.” Gavin sits back in his chair again and runs his fingers through his long hair, pulling slightly to wake himself up. Fae nods, seeming to approve. 

“That’s good. Can’t have bad people on our team. So, when’re you leaving?” Fae leans one shoulder against the door frame, standing contrapposto. 

“Tomorrow. 7am on the dot. We’ll go down to Scotland and I’ll track BrownMan to more of an exact position when we’re there.”

“Have you decided specifically how you’re going to kill him?” Fae asks. She certainly doesn’t beat around the bush.  

“Stabbing.” He pulls out a dagger and stabs it into the desk. “Sharp, clean, and ready to go.” 

Fae looks impressed, “not bad.” 

“I’ll have Tinks snipping, Andrew near me, and Tonks guarding the exit in case anything goes wrong. I’ve got it all planned out.” 

_ Gavin pushes the body off him, he can’t look at the lifeless look in the man’s eyes. He’s still warm. Gavin Richmond has just taken a man’s life.  _

“Good to hear then,” Fae looks at him, almost suspicious and Gavin nearly bristles. 

“Anything on your mind, Fae?” He questions, suspicious at her looking suspicious of him. 

“Are you going to be alright, Rich?” She asks, almost soft, as soft as Fae can get. She is the daughter of the mob boss after all. The question surprises him, 

“Uh. Yeah. I’ll be alright, why do you ask?” He raises an eyebrow at her. Gavin knows she cares for him. They’re friends, sure, but Fae almost seems worried. Which isn’t like her at all. She shrugs. 

“No reason. Just thought I’d ask.”

“Are you going to be okay?” 

She scoffs. “I’m fine. 

 

Andrew, Tinks, and Tonks all get to base at 6:45 in the morning, all looking various states of tired. Tired in a way that tells Gavin they woke up and came straight here, only stopping to get coffee on the way. Gavin’s been jittery since he woke up several hours ago. He only got 3 or 4 hours of sleep. He couldn’t sleep. How do you sleep before you go to travel to kill a man? Gavin is running purely on adrenaline. He wonders vaguely how long he can keep running on adrenaline and only several hours of sleep before he dies. 

“We all ready?” Tonks asks after putting the final box in the back of the car. 

“Yeah. Think so. Everyone else ready?” There comes a few groans in reply and he takes that as a yes. “Okay, on the road we go.” 

The ride from London, England to Glasgow, Scotland is just about seven hour drive. Gavin passes out around hour 4 in the drive. He tries to stay up, he doesn’t want to leave Andrew driving without company in case he fell asleep or got lost. There’s only so much of rainy, backwoods England you can take before you just fall asleep. He wishes he had went to bed earlier, instead of double checking, and then triple checking all their plans. 

  
  


Instead he falls asleep, and wakes up tied to a chair in the middle of an empty warehouse with a headache. The room is spinning and Gavin couldn’t exactly process what was going on. Only that his wrists hurt, his head hurt, and he couldn’t move. When he realizes he can’t move, his mind races. He tries to think of where he is. 

He realizes.  He’s been kidnapped. “Fuck!” He screams, hoping to draw the attention of someone. Then he quickly realizes that’s stupid because who’s going to come to attention? Whoever tied him to the chair. Gavin forces himself to stay calm. He counts his breaths so he remembers to do that. He tries to remember being kidnapped, but he can’t. His head hurts. He fell asleep. Someone must of taken him then. 

He racks his mind to remember. Remember anything. 

 

_ “Be quiet!” Someone hisses. Gavin opens his eyes, cracked only slightly from still being mostly asleep.  _

_ “Huh?” He mumbles slightly. Gavin looks to his right, seeing Andrew standing in front of him.  _

_ “Fuck!” Tinks says from behind Andrew, “ He’s waking up!” The only thing he can recall after that is a pain in the back of his head and then black.  _

 

Gavin takes a deep breath, trying to calm himself down. He takes in his surroundings, takes in anything he has that could help him here. There’s a an office room with a staircase going up to it, there’s two large overhead doors in front of him. So, he’s in a warehouse. At the foot of the staircase he can see his bag, his book bag that has basically everything he needs to get out of here. 

He can feel the hilt of his knife still tucked into his boot  _ and Gavin thought he was the amature.  _ Now, to figure out how to get to it. He’s hands are tied behind his back with zip ties. _ God bless, Candice. _ He pulls the ties as tight as he can. He thinks back to the light training he got from Candice after Gavin showed her what he knew about computers as he got better at hacking. She called it a trade in information. 

He hears voices and his head shoots up. _ Oh, god I’m going to be killed. _ He thinks,  _ Relax.  _ He takes a breath. 

“Well, well, well. I hear you’ve been looking for me?” BrownMan enters the room, coming down from the stair case. Gavin’s mind races, connecting what he remembers to what he learned about the man that was known as BrownMan. Andrew, Tinks, and Tonks. And BrownMan.  _ BrownMan, Andrew, Tink, and Tonks. _ A look of realization must wash over Gavin’s face because BrownMan laughs and says, “There you go, Gavin Richmond.” Gavin pales. No one is supposed to know his name. He’s been going as Rich for the past six months. BrownMan gives him the cockiest grin he’s ever seen. 

“You think I didn’t know? What, your mom calls you… Gav is it, or is it Gavvy? But just to your little sister, yes?” BrownMan smirks at him. “Now,  _ Gav _ . Why don’t we discuss why you’re sitting here, hm?” 

Gavin keeps his face cold, he’s shown too much emotion already. 

“Aren’t you curious?” BrownMan is standing right over him now. “Aren’t you?” 

When Gavin doesn’t acknowledge him again he squats down to look Gavin in the face. “Now. I don’t want to hurt you. But I will.” 

When Gavin, again, doesn’t react, BrownMan, without hesitation, pulls out a pistol and holds the cold, metal end of the barrel to Gavin’s temple. “Don’t make me hurt you.” BrownMan, however, doesn’t look or sound like he cares if he hurts Gavin. He’s grinning wildly, like he’s deriving some sort of pleasure from holding a gun to Gavin’s head. “Now, let me ask you again. Aren’t you curious why you’re sitting here?” Gavin is quick with his answer,

“Because I was employed to brutally murder you for betraying the Red Crew.” He answers just like he’s talking to Fae, casually and coldly. 

“That crew.” He laughs, “They really thought I was  _ ever  _ on their side?” BrownMan cocks the gun against Gavin’s head, he hears the telltale  _ click click.  _ “I have special, inside information that tells me you and Fae are close, no?” 

“No, not really.” He pulls the zip ties even tighter. He only gets one shot at this. 

“Oh?” BrownMan laughs again, his eyes closing for just long enough. 

Gavin rips his zip ties off and ducks his head just as he hears BrownMan swear, and then pull the trigger. The bullet doesn’t miss, it grazes his ear and it stings like a bitch. 

He grabs the knife that BrownMan and his crew were stupid enough to not check for and tackles him to the ground. 

The gun gets knocked out of BrownMan’s hand, sliding across the concrete ground. Gavin doesn’t waste a second thinking about the gun when he has a knife in his hands. 

He stabs. He doesn’t miss him entirely, but misses where he wanted to hit. He stabs BrownMan too low and too far to the left. 

BrownMan screams, and Gavin punches him in the mouth to get him to shut up. BrownMan gets leverage and turns them around, unfortunately for BrownMan he lands on the knife again, this time embedding the knife into his stomach. BrownMan rips the knife out of his stomach and screams again. He gets a proper grip of the knife and swipes at Gavin, making a cut under his collarbone. 

Gavin knocks the knife away with his forearm, only for BrownMan to punch him right on his cheek a second later. Gavin goes for BrownMan’s throat, squeezing as hard as he can. 

BrownMan’s whole face turns red, then purple, he throwing wild punches, but Gavin turns them around again, putting all his body weight to holding the air out of BrownMan’s lungs. 

BrownMan is desperately trying to grab the knife, but it’s too far out of his reach. 

Gavin counts slowly.  _ One. Two. Three. Four. Five…. Ten. Eleven…  _ BrownMan stops kicking. His face is bright blue. Gavin holds him down for exactly another five seconds before getting up, getting the knife and ripping a deep cut in BrownMan’s throat. 

Gavin’s eyes are bloodshot and his hands are dripping with blood. He looks down at his three thousand pound kill. He’s breathing heavy and arm has a few cuts in it. Gavin wipes the knife off on his shirt, tucks it back in his boot, grabs his bag, and finds a door outside. This is the day Gavin decides he doesn’t like to do the coldblooded killing himself. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies this chapter took so long to get out, it's not a filler chapter but it is very much a set-up chapter. The Fake AH Crew has finally been introduced and Gavin and Ryan have finally met (yay!), the action starts next chapter!

It takes Gavin exactly thirteen seconds to realize what he just did once he’s outside. It takes Gavin exactly two seconds after that to throw up. And thirty seconds after that to start running. BrownMan knew his name. Gavin runs faster. 

People in this crew know his name. They know his mum. Gavin runs until he can’t anymore, and then he walks. He ditches his cell phone a mile from the warehouse, taking the battery out, crushing it with his heel, and tossing it in the river. He gets two miles away from the river, deep into the forest until he settles behind a tree and next to a stream. He checks his bookbag. He has a book, his phone charger, three shirts, three pairs of underwear and socks, his rifle taken apart, another knife, his fake passport, three grand in cash, a water bottle, four (now squished) granola bars, his laptop (carefully tucked in with his shirts), and a small first aid-kit his mum insisted he took with his trip. Adding the pistol he took from the warehouse. 

He strips himself of his shirt and walks over to the stream and uses his dampened shirt to wipe the dried blood on his chest. He, then, carefully patches himself up with the first-aid kit his mum made him bring. He doesn’t realize he’s crying until he watches a tear drip and pool onto the toe of his boot. 

Gavin counts to ten. He lets himself cry for ten seconds, his head ducked low.  _ One-  _ I can never go home.  _ Two. Three-  _ my family is in danger.  _ Four-  _ I have to protect them.  _ Five. Six-  _ I have nowhere to go.  _ Seven _ .  _ Eight. Nine-  _ they can't get hurt if I never exist.  _ Ten.  _ Gavin has his plan. 

His ten seconds are up. He cleans his chest off and bandages it, holds his wet t-shirt against his sore eye, and cleans off his ear. His ear is still ringing, but the sound slowly going away so Gavin figures it's nothing to worry about. He thinks about protecting his family and how exactly he can do that. 

Gavin Richmond can never exist. Everything online about Gavin. Any and every record of him, connecting him to his family. He can never exist. He looks over and sees his laptop poking out of his backpack. He can make it so he never existed. 

After he realizes this he's on autopilot. 

 

Gavin gives himself ten minutes before he has to start walking again. He refills his water bottle, puts a new shirt on, eats one of his granola bars, and keeps walking. He follows the river, figuring people always stay next to water (he watches way too many shows on The Discovery Channel). He’ll find a town eventually. He ignores his stomach growling at him. 

After three more hours of walking Gavin realized the following: his feet hurt, he's never been so hungry in his life (considering he hasn’t eaten a proper meal since lunch the previous day), he has a massive headache, and he smells pizza. 

_ Pizza? _

“Pizza!” His mouth is watering, his nose leads directly to food. He doesn't think he's ever been so happy to see other people in his life. He forces himself not to bounce out of his shoes he's so excited. He waits in line, planning on ordering the biggest pizza and fizzy drink he can. 

Gavin pays for his food with a hundred pound note, looking at the cashier apologetically. 

The young, probably 15 year old girl, tells him it's alright. But she's looking at him like she's scared of him. 

Then he remembers his face is roughed up pretty bad. Poor girl, her name tag reads Alissa, must think he's going to rob the place. He thinks bitterly, full of guilt, she wouldn't be wrong to think that. 

He sits outside with his pizza and giant drink, taking a bite of pizza and a giant gulp of Sprite. He sits back, finally able to relax for a minute it seems and take in where he is. Looking off in the distance, he sees a sign “Welcome to Stirling, Scotland!” it reads in big red letters.  

The town isn’t exactly huge, but it’s no hole-in-the-wall-no-where either. Which is kind of exactly what Gavin needs right now. Some where he could blend, where he could blend as “Rich Floyd”, which is what it said on his ID. 

After he finishes his pizza -which he probably shouldn’t have eaten so quickly- he goes in search of a hotel. Somewhere he could sleep for the night, somewhere he could work so he could make Gavin Richmond disappear. 

The hotel he finds is on the edge of town, small with a sleepy looking receptionist with a nametag reading Matt Bragg. Gavin walks up to the front desk, the receptionist looking up as he does so. 

“How may I help you?” Once Matt sees that Gavin is there he smiles politely and seems more awake at some form of work to be doing and not just sitting around doing nothing. He has a warm smile and speaks with an American accent. 

“May I have a room please?” Gavin asks, quiet and trying to keep his head down, trying to avoid the receptionist seeing his face, mostly because of how beat up he looked and he really needs this room.

“‘Course,” he responds. “Any preferences where?” 

“As close to the WiFi router as I can… If it’s not too much trouble.” Matt looks at him kind of funny so Gavin makes up a quick lie, “I’m a gamer.” Matt’s face lights up. 

“You too? Mind if I ask what you play? One of my favorites is World of Warcraft,” He says it like he’s proud. It’s an expensive game to play, Gavin would probably play it if he could. Gavin tries to think of a game he’s seen one of his friends play. 

“I’m uh. Working on finishing… Splinter Cell?” Gavin hopes that he says that right. Matt practically screeches, shocking Gavin just enough to make him look up, which makes Matt look over his face carefully. 

“Yo, dude. You alright? You need… Like a doctor or somethin’?” Matt is still staring at him. 

“No, I’m alright,” Gavin replies, ducking his head back down and staring back at the floor. “Sorry, can I just. Can I have a room? Kinda had a bad day.” 

“Yeah, apparently.” Matt laughs shortly. “Course. I’ll get you signed in now. ID?” 

  
  


After he’s showered, drank a bottle of water, and changed his shirt, he gets to work. After this Gavin Richmond will no longer exist. Gavin Richmond, shy 17 year old college student with amazing potential, with two siblings and a mum, will no longer exist. 

Instead, Gavin Free, 20 year old, hacker with no family to be found will. Those three simple identity points are the only things he says for himself after deleting everything and anything that someone could track Gavin Richmond with, going so far as to hack his state records and delete his birth certificate and driver's license (which for the record was only mildly hard for him- who makes the codes for these systems). 

He has to delete all online information on his mum and siblings. He knows it’s a temporary solution until he can get them a new house or something, but it’s a start. 

He makes papers for himself, a new birth certificate, a new ID after going to the office supply store around the corner. He struggles his way through making the fakes, having only ever done it once before with Fae over his shoulder teaching him step by step.

He just has to figure out where to go. He needs to be away from his family, he knows that now. Walking back from the store, arms full of various types of paper and a color printer, Matt waves at him. 

“Hi Rich!” He calls out politely in his still very American accent.  _ America.  _

  
  


Gavin ends up staying far longer than he would have liked to in Stirling, Scotland. He stays for four days,  _ I should’ve been home by now, _ still anonymous in the relatively small town. He waits for all his information to process in the state computer and buys a plane ticket nonstop to Liberty City and a metal briefcase with a key to keep his weapons in. He writes and prints out all the legal information he needs, including a gun permit. He wishes his time in Stirling had been shorter, but he needs to take the time to write the papers out properly, he can’t risk getting caught. While he is there he takes some time to relax a bit and get himself really situated. He buys a few new clothes, he eats well, and he sleeps for at least 8 hours a day.

After the first initial meeting, Matt mostly leaves him alone, which he’s thankful for and will have to leave Matt a generous tip in thanks. 

He has all legal information he needs, a new passport, ID, birth certificate. He’s a new person, he’s deleted his old self entirely. Which is exactly what he had thought of when he had to decide on a new last name, choosing Free and putting it in all the appropriate slots.

He hacks (is it hacking if he already knows the password?) into his mum’s FaceBook account only to print out a picture of all four of them. Of Liv and Basil and mum and him all smiling huge in front of mum’s wannabe flower garden she’d had for about two months. He allows himself five minutes, he uses every single one of those counted seconds to cry. He just wants his mum. 

He prints the photo and tucks it carefully in his wallet after his five minutes are up, meticulously folding the photo evenly, making sure to not fold through anyone’s face. After he folds it carefully into his backpack he deletes his mum’s FaceBook, he’s just lucky his mum was never that into social media (never had the time to be even if she wanted to be). By the time she notices the account is gone, it’ll be too late to recovery it.  

He looks around the hotel room carefully, making sure he didn’t forget anything he needed. The printer was left in the closet floor for someone with more time and space than he currently has, his laptop was wiped clean and disposed of in a trash can a few blocks away, his old passport and old information was burned. He looks at his feet, which lies a metal locked case for his weapons and his bookbag. All of his belongs. He takes a deep breath and nods to himself, picking up everything he now owns in this world and leaves. 

 

Getting on the plane he is surprisingly calm. He doesn’t exactly ease through security. Bringing his weapons are almost more of a pain than it’s worth. He wishes he had just disposed of them. It’s too late for that now though. He gets through security. All his papers pass without qualm, which he is ever thankful for. He’s pretty good at this hacking stuff. 

From the airport Gavin calls his house phone, having had the number memorized since he was about 9 years old. 

“Hello?” His mum answers; she sounds stressed. She would, she’s always been the worrier, and Gavin hasn’t called in the past five days.

“Mum?” He asks. He wills himself not to get choked up.

“Gavin Richmond! How dare you? Where are you, Gavin? Why haven’t you called?” She sounds pissed, but underneath that he knows she’s just worried. She has every right to be. 

“Mum, I miss you.”  _ Don’t cry. Don’t cry.  _ His voice breaks anyways.

“Gavin? Where are you? Come home. Are you alright?” She only sounds more worried now. 

“I can’t, mum. I’ve done some bad things… I- I can’t. Please just- please don’t look for me. I’ll find a way to get in contact with you guys-”

“Gavin-”

“No. Mum. Listen.” They’re both quiet for a moment, both clearly just trying to catch their breath. In the silent moment between them he hears Tori whining to Basil for not sharing something of his. He bites down hard on his lower lip to stop the sob that’s moments from escaping. “Change your number. I’ll.. I’ll find a way to protect you. I  _ am _ protecting you. I love you. Don’t forget that.”

“Gavin, what’s  _ going on _ ? What have you  _ done _ ?”

“Mum, I gotta go. I’ll be alright. Just take care of Tori and Basil. Tell them I love them. I’m so sorry.” He cries anyways. From how the other end of the line sounds, his mum is crying too. 

“We love you, too. Please don’t go; you can’t!  _ Talk _ to me! What’s going on?” She sounds desperate. He wants to curl in her lap and cry. He hears a “mum!” it sounds like Basil. 

“I gotta go. I love you.” He hangs up before she can change his mind, before he can hear one of his siblings again. If he does he’ll be sure to change his mind. And if he does that he won’t be protecting them. He has to protect them.  

He thinks that was probably a mistake- calling home, but he doesn’t care. He looks at his carry-on, where he knows the picture of his family is hidden. He lets himself breathe for a moment before stepping away from the phone and grabbing his bag. 

“America here I come,” he mutters under his breath. 

 

His flight sucks. He keeps his head down most of the time, his cap hiding his eyes and his hoodie that’s pulled up over his head shadowing some of his face. He tries to sleep for most of the 8 hour flight. He doesn’t. There’s a bratty kid behind him kicking his seat, somewhere on the plane there’s a baby fussing, the business looking man sitting beside him hits his keyboard keys so damn hard, the flight attendant, as nice as he knows she was trying to be, won’t leave him the hell alone. Gavin has a headache by the time he gets off the plane. He’s tired, achy, and wants his mum. 

He finds himself a relatively sketchy looking motel. The person at the counter doesn’t ask questions. Gavin puts a 100 dollar bill (exchanging all his pounds for dollars had been a trip. America’s economy apparently in the gutter so for every pound he had he exchanged it for almost two dollars) on the counter and asked for a room. In exchange he got a key and was asked to sign an outdated looking sign-in notebook. He signs “Gavin Free” is his messy handwriting and turns and goes to his assigned room. He sets his bags down on the floor next to the Ikea-looking dresser and falls face first onto the bed. He knows tomorrow he’ll have to start working. He’ll go out and find a more permanent place to live. Buy new electronics. But for tonight, he rests. 

 

His rules are all still in place; however, it seems Liberty City is a lot easier to pickpocket people than in bumfuck nowhere, England. Gavin buys a laptop with a credit card he stole from a nasty looking business man he saw in a diner, who was particularly nasty to his waitress. 

The cashier looks at him, the name on the credit care, and the laptop. “School shopping, hm?” He panics, but only for a moment. 

He nods his head excitedly, “yeah! I’m going to university this spring.” He puts on the biggest grin he can. The cashier laughs quietly, then continues to gives him advice on how to survive college as they check him out. He nods along and pretends like he’s listening. After he buys the laptop, he takes the cash and ditches the wallet. 

After he finds out what the cost of living is like he knows he has to pull something bigger than just pickpocketing. There’s a corner store, in a bad part of town, but not too bad that they’re always on guard. Their security system is low, Gavin can hack it remotely. He can be in and out in three minutes. He knows he can. 

 

Gavin moves into an apartment a week later, his first priority being faster internet. Gavin spends his 18th birthday planning his heist, Gavin doesn’t ever remember his 18th birthday. His mum was always better at dates than he was, this year he doesn’t even have a use for remembering it, so he doesn’t. He would remember a few months down the line, when a friend would ask him when his birthday is.

 

He robs the convenience store after living in America for two months. He sends half the money to his mum with a note “take care of yourself”. After three months of living in Liberty City he finds out how to acquire his own car. He’s made a few friends, who he prefers to call business partners. He meets someone who tells him where to get guns without a permit. Meets someone else that tells him how to steal and make a car his own. Meets another person that hooks him up with his first client in Liberty City. 

He spends three months in Liberty City making a name for himself. He does far less corner store robbing and far more looking up intel on rich wives and husbands looking to catch their partners cheating on them. He does a bit of hacking into crew’s databases for rival crews. He doesn’t directly associate with any of them. He’ll hack one crew then go to that same crew and hack another crew. Someone as good as him in his line of work is hard to find, everyone wants a piece of him and he’s too valuable to kill. For now.

Then he meets a girl with blonde hair that goes by the name Blondey.

“You Free?” She asks. she looks less intimidating than Fae, but the knife she has stuck the inside of her boot and the lump at her hip, concealed by her jacket says otherwise. 

“Depends on who's asking,” he replies gruffly. He looks her directly in the eyes, face as cool as steel. 

“RT Crew. I'm Barbara. I seek out prospective new employees. You’ve made quite the name for yourself around here in such a short period of time. You're a hacker, you're an assassin. You’re smart, but if you're not careful you're going to get yourself killed. You need backup for this life or you won't have one at all. RT Crew is looking into bringing you in full time. What do you say?” She gives an award winning smile, she should've been a model instead of a killer. 

Gavin says nothing, at first. He's quiet for a moment. “How do I know you're not just looking to get rid of me. I could be encroaching on your territory for all I know.”

“Because. RT Crew is still new, still growing. We need someone with your hacking skills. You get better as we get bigger. You get paid for every job you do with us. We provide protection for you. Honestly, it’s us that’s taking the real risk. We need someone dedicated. However, for the purposes of right now, you won’t be an actual crew member. Just a hire out.” 

Gavin is again, still and quiet. She has a point. And as long as they don’t get the wrong idea that he’s ever going to be apart of their crew. So he nods. “You’ve got yourself a deal.” Blondey grins at him, so he adds, “for now.” 

 

Gavin, as it turns out, was not charging nearly enough for his “special set of skills”, as Barbara calls them. His first job with RT he pulls in 10 grand. He hacks the warehouse security of a rival crew, guides the mercenaries though the warehouse via earpieces, and he gets 10 grand. No one on their crew got hurt. He told each merc where to shoot and when and they followed his instructions. He was nervous as all hell, but Burnie, the leader of the RT Crew, who is one of the nicest men Gavin’s met in this business, is sitting next to Gavin the whole time. Gavin is wary, but he feels calm around Burnie. He trusts Burnie enough that he knows he’s not about to kill Gavin. Burnie is almost the father Gavin’s always wanted, not that he would ever say that or trust him fully.

 

He does two more jobs with the RT Crew and sends his mum a deed. He bought a house, online, through phone calls and wiring money to England. The deed is in his mum’s name. It’s in a nice neighborhood, three bedrooms, two stories. The pictures he’s seen of the house are nice. He writes the note “don’t ask questions… I love you” and sticks it in the envelope with the deed and the keys. He’s been smart about sending mail. He won’t mail it in town, but instead he makes it a day trip, mails things a few states over, in a different city each time. He doesn’t want to get tracked, he can’t. 

 

Eight months into living in Liberty City he looks almost nothing like he did a year ago. He’s broken his nose more times than he’d like to remember, his left cheekbone twice, his right cheekbone once, cut his hair short and styles it into a spiky side part, and he even manages to grow a bit of a beard. He’s grown taller, he looks more exhausted. He has a scar or two on his forehead. He looks more like he belongs in this business. 

He’s more comfortable making deals. He’s good talking to people, he discovers. He hacks them, learns what they like, learns how they like to be spoken to, and uses that to his advantage. He learns how to cover his tracks, he speaks to other hackers around, learns little tricks, discovers little tricks of his own that he will occasionally trade for other information. He quickly discovers information is one of the best types of currency you can have. He’s good at what he does, he gets better everyday. Therefore; he gets paid more, because he gets better, RT Crew has better intel, which in turn makes them more powerful. 

It isn’t but a little over a year before The RT Crew is the most powerful crew in Liberty City. He’s one of the main people in RT Crew now. He trusts the crew, it wasn’t easy. But once Gavin firmly decided that Burnie didn’t want to kill him, that he was incredibly useful to him and not only that, Burnie admitted after getting a little too drunk one night, that Burnie cared very deeply for Gavin. So, Gavin learns to trust again. At first, only Burnie had his trust, but quickly followed Barbara. And after cracking the spiky exterior, he trusts Gus as well. 

No one can touch him. Not to say he’s safe because he’s absolutely not safe. Almost every person in the city wants him dead, but they know if they do, RT Crew will come after them and kill them. Plus, he’s still valuable. There’s still things he’s figured out how to do, better and faster than other hackers, that he hasn’t given up yet. He’s one of a kind.

Burnie, Gus, and Barbara turn out to be his friends. He’s confident in saying that. They’re his friends, he trusts them and they trust him. 

“I need you to look up some intel,” Burnie enters his office and sits on the other side of his desk. He faces Gavin, who is sitting in the corner on his laptop, not doing much, just reading a bit on someone Barbara gave him- a potential employee. 

“Yeah? On what?” He gets up off the floor and sits at his desk, in front of several monitors. His hands hover over the keyboard, ready to type and search. 

“Geoff Ramsey. He’s the leader of The Fake AH Crew. Look up his crew, everyone in it. There’s four in the main group, I believe.”

“Alright,” Gavin’s already typing the name, “what’d ya need to know?” His eyes scanning over the screen.

“He wants to make a partnership with us. They’re in a different city than us. Achievement City. They’d be kinda like our sister crew.” Gavin quietly “hmm”s, busy reading the information laid out in front of him. 

“There’s five of them. The main crew. Geoff Ramsey, the leader, obviously. Jack… I can’t find a last name right now, give me a bit of time on that. Looks likes she’s the pilot? And maybe second in command. Michael Jones, looks like he takes care of most of their ordinance. Jeremy Dooley, it looks like. He’s their mechanic… or maybe he’s a mercenary… It looks like he does a bit of everything, actually. And I can’t find a name on the last- oh, my god.”

“What?” Burnie questions, “did you find something awful about them?”

“Um, depends on how you mean awful. They have The  _ Vagabond _ working for them, it looks like.”

“No shit!” Burnie laughs-  _ laughs!  _

“What’re you laughing about?” Gavin squawks. 

“I can’t believe they have The Vagabond working with them. We better get on their good side. If he really is working for them, we do not want to be on their bad. Same team.”

“Burnie, we know nothing about him, I haven’t even been able to find a first name! And trust me I’ve looked! I’ve been looking for months. He’s a psychopath. We can’t trust them.” Gavin leans back in his chair, crosses his arms over his chest, and looks at his screen which has a grainy security, black and white, photo of him. It’s not even technically him. It’s his mask. No face, no name. Gavin can’t find anything about him. Only his reputation, which isn’t pretty. More like terrifying.

“We should at least meet them. Give them a chance. Look more into them, let me know what you think. Go over the information with Barb. Maybe Gus. Try to have a final report on them by Tuesday. I want your personal opinion too, Gav, al’ight?” He has two days to decide, then. Gavin nods. Burnie walks over and puts his hand on Gavin’s shoulder reassuringly. 

“Hey,” Burnie asks, quietly. “How’s your mom?” Gavin smiles softly and nods. 

“Good. She’s safe,” he replies, letting out a relaxed breath. 

“You’ve done good by her, kid,” is all Burnie says before he’s walking out the door. Gavin relaxes, just at the very thought of his mum. He gets to work. 

 

Gavin decides they’re worth meeting. Gavin meets with Geoff Ramsey, taking Dan Gruchy with him as back up, as muscle. Gavin trusts Dan, he trusted him almost immediately as soon as Dan opened his mouth and Gavin discovered he was English, too. 

 

_ “So, yeah. I think we should look into this some more-” Dan was speaking to Burnie about some heist Gavin wasn’t particularly involved in. He did a bit of intel for it, but that was about it. This was a Barbara heist, mostly.  _

_ “You’re English!” Gavin exclaimed, interrupting Dan mid sentence.  _

_ “You’re English!” Dan replied, sounding equally excited.  _

_ Dan was technically just a merc, but he and Gavin had been close ever since they’d met. People joked that they were dating, which they both gagged at. But it was only because Dan followed Gavin around like a lost puppy dog. Which, Gavin didn’t mind at all. It made him feel safe, protected.  _

 

Ramsey shows up, with none other than The Vagabond as his muscle. He’s holding an assault rifle casually, finger off the trigger, what looks like the safety on. Dan, behind him, readjusts his own semi automatic rifle in his hands and stands up taller. Ramsey grins upon seeing Gavin, 

“Ah, I assume you’re Mr. Free, then?” 

“Gavin,” he corrects. “After all, if things work out the way we both want them too, we’ll be working with each other quite a lot.”

“In that case. I’m Geoff and,” he gestures behind him, “that’s Ryan.” Gavin freezes for half a second.  _ Ryan, _ he has a name afterall. 

“Hello,” Vagabond-  _ Ryan _ \- says from behind Geoff. His voice is muffled from behind the mask. His voice isn’t as menacing as he thought it would be, his voice is lower in tone than Geoff’s, but definitely not menacing, he sounds just casual. They want them to trust them, clearly. Give The Vagabond’s name, even if it’s just the first, must be huge for them. Gavin wouldn’t trust them as far as he could throw them. 

“Gavin,” he says, referring to himself, “and that’s Dan.” Dan nods in confirmation from behind Gavin. 

“Hm,” Geoff replies, clearly pleased. “Shall we talk business then?” 

 

They settle on an agreement they’re both happy with, deciding to give their partnership a trial run before settling on anything permanent. Gavin reports back to Burnie, who seems pleased the meeting went well. Geoff was surprisingly funny and quite nice. The Vaga- Ryan didn’t talk much, he occasionally stifled a laugh from something Geoff, or once, something Gavin said, which shouldn’t have made Gavin as proud as he was. 

“They gave us Vagabond’s first name. I think they’re serious. They want our help,” Gavin informs Burnie. Burnie’s eyebrows shoot up to his hairline. 

“No fucking way. What is it?” 

“Ryan, apparently.”

“Fucking. Seriously. Ryan? Not even something scary? He’s the type of guy that should have the name like… Norman. Or something.”

“Norman?!” Gavin squawks, ridiculously. “Who’s scary that’s named  _ Norman _ ?”  

“Psycho!”

“Oh, yeah!” Gavin laughs, “Anyways. He wasn’t that scary. Besides the whole. Mask thing. And soulless look in his eye. Actually he was kind of scary. But he was wearing honest to god dad jeans, trainers, and he kept trying to stifle his laughs. It was definitely weird.”

“So,” Burnie clears his throat with a cough and gets serious. “You really think we can trust them?” Gavin thinks a moment, back to their conversation. 

“I think we should definitely at least continue communication. Maybe involve them in some of our lower heists. Trade ordinance, maybe loan a few of our mercs to them. It’s worth looking into. At least play nice.”  

“I don't need to tell you to keep an eye on them,” Burnie tells him. 

“No, you don't. I know.” Gavin nods, to which Burnie mirrors the movement. 

“Geoff was… funny? He was surprisingly nice. Well, you know. As nice as you or I,” Burnie scoffs at him, “I think we can trust them. For now. Perhaps trust with a grain of salt.”

“It's take what they say with a grain of salt, you-”

“Same difference,” Gavin’s not listening in the slightest. Burnie really should've given up trying to correct what he says ages ago, but Burnie’s insistent he speaks proper English and not “Gavin. Seriously you speak your own fuckin’ language. You speak Gavin” and Gavin is insistent on keeping how he speaks, he thinks it makes him original. 

Burnie sighs at him. “I’ll give them a three month time trial. We’ll see how well they work and play with others. You,” he pauses for emphasis and points a finger at Gavin, “should think about visiting their neck of the woods and checking them out up close and personal.” Gavin makes a sound of agreement. 

“Yeah, I was thinking that too. Maybe help their hackers a bit, be friendly. Trade a bit of inside information.”

“What are  _ you  _ going to learn from newbies? Seriously, you're the best hacker on this side of the US.”

“And how do you think I got to be this good? I learn everyday,” he scoffs. “Anyways, I’ll make arrangements with Geoff. See what I can do.”

“Hey,” his voice sounds serious, Gavin looks up in acknowledgment from his monitor. “Stay safe. Take Dan. You're right. We really don't know these people. Do me a favor and don't get yourself killed. I'd be a little sad if you died.”

“Yeah,” he smiles, reassuring, “I always am.” Burnie gives a half nod at his statement and turns and leaves. Gavin hunches over his keyboard. He’s got information to dig up. 

**Author's Note:**

> Talk to me on tumblr over at [gavinisabanana](http://gavinisabanana.tumblr.com/)


End file.
